


poor unfortunate souls

by driedupwishes



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Idiots in Love, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-29
Updated: 2015-04-29
Packaged: 2018-03-26 06:51:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3841219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/driedupwishes/pseuds/driedupwishes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Eren Jaeger attempted to make tea for his (unfortunate) crush, Levi, and the one time he actually managed it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	poor unfortunate souls

Eren didn’t understand why anyone would want to drink tea in the summer, since it was already so hot, but he had already come to terms with his unfortunate crush and the weird shit Levi liked. And since Eren had gone through all the trouble of getting Levi to come over he figured he might as well go the extra mile and make him tea.

He was pretty proud of himself too until he slid Levi the cup and the older boy took a sip. A normal person might have had the social decency to swallow, but Levi choked and spit the tea straight out at Eren, sputtering like an angry cat as he did so.

He didn’t even look sorry about it either, Eren thought as he wrinkled his nose. Levi leapt into a long winded spiel about how that ‘fucking piss water you just gave me isn’t real tea, Jaeger, what the fuck’. Eren lamented his weird fucking crush and figured he could always try again next time.

 

-

 

The second time Eren made Levi tea, the older boy was sick. Eren hadn’t known that when he’d come over, but Hanji had opened the door and gleefully dragged him in, gabbering on about someone keeping an eye on Levi while they went to the store for more medicine and soup. Levi had fuzzily and stuffily protested that he wasn’t a child while glaring a few inches off to Eren’s left.

Levi had lost that argument with flying colors and Eren, feeling bad for him, had made him some tea.

“You’re not going to poison me again, are you,” Levi mumbled, eyes half lidded. Eren had a sudden urge to dump the mug on his lap but didn’t. Third degree burns (or whatever you’d get from a cup of tea) weren’t conductive to properly wooing someone.

Or so he’d been told.

“Har har har,” Eren grumbled, dropping carefully down to hold the mug while Levi drank. He got a cold glare for that, but it didn’t bother him. Levi was like a wet cat, miserable and looking for someone to join him. “Drink, it’ll make you feel better.”

Levi drank. He even swallowed. But he did not, as Eren was told for literal hours afterward, feel better for having consumed the ‘absolute bullshit you just stewed in the sewers and asked the rats down there to taste test who even let you in my _house_ , Jaeger’ he had called tea.

Hanji patted Eren’s head and drove him home after they got back, promising him there was always next time.

 

-

 

The third time Eren made Levi tea, it too two hours of pep talk from an overly amused Hanji and utterly bemused Erwin. It was the day before Levi’s birthday and they were supposed to have their holiday gift exchange party. Someone had suggested hot chocolate, but Eren, knowing Levi hated hot chocolate, wanted to fix him tea.

His impromptu coaches were next to useless in the whole matter, since Hanji suggested mistletoe tea (which Eren was pretty sure wasn’t a thing) and Erwin suggested going to Starbucks, getting a cup of chai tea latte, bringing it back and pouring it in a mug.

“He’ll know,” Eren protested again. “He’ll fucking look at it and _know_.”

“But he’ll drink it,” Erwin pointed out. “Levi swears he’s not, but he’s hispter garbage at his core.”

Eren would have liked to see Erwin say that to Levi's face, but he bit his tongue and turned away to eye the cupboards with a groan.

In the end Eren made Levi a cup of chai tea and gave it to Petra by accident. Petra apologized _at least_ six times for scooping up the mug out of his hand without asking. Levi didn’t even bother to hide his relief, especially when she quietly and grudgingly admitted it was over steeped and too sugary to drink.

Eren wasn’t even mad anymore. Now he was just determined.

 

-

 

Which was probably why the fourth attempt lead to the kitchen fire.

 

-

 

“Oh my god,” Levi said when he arrived, only a few minutes after the fire trucks. Eren was soot covered and sitting on the curb, hands curled loosely around an empty now-chipped mug. He wondered faintly if this was really worth the trouble. “What the fuck did you _do_ , Eren?”

Eren shrugged. “Tried to make you tea again.”

He didn’t look up, because he didn’t want to risk catching the disgust in Levi’s face. 

(What he missed instead was a crack, which leaked warmth across Levi’s creeks like a toxic feeling oil spill, tainting them bright lovely pink.

What he also missed what Levi's use of his first name instead of his last, soft like he was scared, because Eren's cheek was smudged and his hands shook faintly, painting the scariest picture Levi had ever seen.

For someone would could notice the slightly inflection in Levi's voice that meant he was being sarcastic he was really obtuse when it mattered, Levi reflected. How unfortunate.)

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Levi muttered. His shoulder bumped Eren’s as he sat down next to him. “You’re a fucking menace to society, Jaeger.”

He definitely was, if the baffled and horrified looks he was getting from the firemen were any sign. But with Levi pressed warm and close against his side he didn’t feel like the whole thing was such a disaster. He’d get it for sure next time, after all.

-

 

The fifth time, well…

 

-

 

“Hey,” Eren protested to the room full of flabbergasted onlookers. Honestly, this was getting ridiculous. “At least there wasn’t a fire!”

“You _poisoned him_ ,” Isabel yelled, her hands in the air. “You literally poisoned him and you think this went _well_?”

Eren scrunched up his nose. “I didn’t say well,” he muttered back, a weak defense. He scratched awkwardly at his jaw. “I just said that there was no fire.”

The entire assembly of their combined friends hanging around the waiting room in the hospital stared at him, flabbergasted. They had seen the ups and the downs of Eren’s increasingly dramatic attempts at making tea to try to impress Levi, but honestly? Strawberry tea? For the boy who was very, very, _very allergic to strawberries_?

It was an impressive new record of ridiculous. And no one could even enjoy it properly because Eren still looked so worried and frazzled, even after the doctors had assured then that Levi would be perfectly fine in the morning. There was just something about the slump of Eren’s shoulders, like he had finally given up that made them want to wrap him in blankets and make _him_ tea. Before they could however Eren ran a hand through his hair, took one last look at the door to Levi’s hospital room, and made a face.

“Text me if he wakes up,” Eren muttered. They nodded mutely as he stormed away, face turning into something fierce and determined the further away he walked.

“That can’t be good,” Farlan mumbled. He swore loudly when Isabel smacked him, but he kept to his sentiment: nothing good came from an angry determined Eren Jaeger when tea and Levi was involved.

(Or at least nothing had yet.)

 

-

 

Levi woke up to the unfortunate smell of mustily clean hospital in his nose. He blinked, wincing at the sound of the beeping in his ears, thankful that he wasn’t stupid enough to try to sit up immediately. Instead he opened his eyes, blinking a few times when the room was hard to focus on.

“You’re alive,” Mikasa said, leaning into his view. He jolted at the sight of her, scowling at first, but she raised his bed into an upright position without being asked, so he let it pass.

“Good,” she continued, as if he cared. “If you hadn’t Eren might have done something even more stupid than usual out of guilt.”

Levi, fuzzy from whatever the fuck they were pumping him full off to flush out the strawberry tea he only vaguely remembered drinking, turned pink at the mention of the boy shaped bane on his life. He glared, still too tired to tell her off, but she only shook her head back at him and gestured to his left.

Eren was there, fast asleep in a visiting chair. His mouth was hanging open and his hair was sticking up, but he was gorgeous enough to make Levi shudder against the hospital seats. Mikasa made a quiet gagging noise from his other side and he turned back to glare, coming up short when he found she was giving them both an amused fond kind of smile.

“He’s lucky our dad works here,” she murmured, “otherwise we would have been kicked out hours ago. It would have been a shame too, since the idiot went all the way home to make you more tea.”

Levi couldn’t help but make a face at that. His crush on Eren was unfortunate enough, but it definitely wasn’t helped by the fact that he insisted on making him tea again and again, even though he was wretched at it. Mikasa laughed quietly at the face he made before gesturing to the travel mug on a nearby table, close to where Levi was. He recognized the mug from the Jaeger household, which meant that it had to be the next batch of torturous tea Eren had made him.

Levi wiggled his fingers at the mug. Mikasa raised her eyebrows, equal parts horrified and amused. Levi glared at her and wiggled his fingers until she leaned over and slid the top of the mug open so Levi could drink it. She didn’t hand it to him, instead bringing it up to his lips like he was a child.

Levi wished it was Eren doing it again, no matter how terrible his tea had been when Levi had last been sick.

His lips touched the rim and Mikasa carefully tipped it up, giving him time to change his mind and pull back. The liquid that hit his lips wasn’t warm at all, cold as could be, but other than that it…

It wasn’t bad.

Eren had actually made drinkable tea.

Levi tipped his jaw and swallowed, licking at his lips when Mikasa drew the mug back. She looked just as surprised as he felt and they turned to look at Eren together, mug still between them and silence hanging in the air.

“He’s going to be unbearable now,” Mikasa warned him eventually, leaving the mug where he could reach it. She stretched before glancing at the clock, staggering around like she was preparing to leave. The thought was both a relief and a horror, because then Levi would be alone with Eren and his surprisingly drinkable tea.

“He’s already unbearable,” Levi lied, words rasping awkwardly around his tube. But despite the anxious knot in his chest (and Eren’s horrifying track record with a tea pot) Levi found himself looking forward to telling Eren he hadn’t absolutely fucked up the latest cup of tea.

Maybe it meant his unfortunate crush could finally evolve into some kind of actual relationship.

Though one with less poisoning, he hoped. And kitchen fires.

One where Eren maybe left the tea making to him, save for special occasions.

Yeah, Levi thought, reaching for the travel mug as he twisted to watch Eren sleep. That sounded nice.

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this all on my phone and posted it to tumblr while my internet was down one night and it still honestly cracks me up. so here you go!


End file.
